2022 ATRA Annual Conference IN-PERSON Intensives and Workshops Proposal

Across the world, people living with dementia, care partners and other family/community members, dementia and health professionals, activists, academics and artists are coming together to develop and advocate for a diverse and humanizing vision of care and support that promotes inclusion, relationality, creativity, joy and the possibility of growth for everyone living with, and impacted by, dementia.

This experiential workshop will use improvisational games, creative exercises and philosophical/performed conversation to give participants a real-time experience in creating an environment in which “non-knowing growing” is possible. We will work together on challenging the individualized loss and tragedy narrative we are all socialized to and on freeing ourselves, if only for a moment, from a repressively cognitive culture that relates to dementia and related conditions with stigma, shame and isolation.

We welcome anyone looking for more intimate, emotionally supportive and growth-filled ways to live with memory loss, aging and dementia; who are interested in using diagnosis as a starting point for creativity; and who want to discover together how to create more connection, inclusion, hope…and yes, joy in even the most difficult and uncertain of life situations.